Fiji ‘losing skilled people’
FIJI is losing vocational teachers as better training and employment offers come in from overseas countries.
Higher Education Commission Fiji CEO Dr Rohit Kishore said Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) was still seen as a second-tier Ɲeld of study in Fiji’s education system.
In addition, there is a lack of educational pathways for vocational trainers to further their qualiƝcations.
Dr Kishore said this often put vocational teachers at odds with higher education teachers.
“What we see is in higher education, you can do a certiƝcate, diploma, degree, master’s and on, but in TVET, much of the education you see is at certiƝcate level, hardly at diploma level.
“This is where the students, teachers and parents and stakeholders are demanding that we lift the game of TVET, bring it on par with higher education.
“We are losing a lot of good skilled people to Australia, New Zealand and other countries, particularly our TVET trained teachers are going, they are in high demand.
“At the moment, we don’t have enough teachers – this
They cannot be promoted in line with the teachers in higher education. Why? Because they don’t have the qualifications, so we want to provide good TVET degrees
– Dr Rohit Kishore
is competency-based education, different from higher education and with different style of teaching and different assessments, hands on practicals and industrial attachments.”
He said one of the main reasons TVET training teachers were leaving was because they were “stuck”.
“They cannot be promoted in line with the teachers in higher education. Why? Because they don’t have the qualiƝcations, so we want to provide good TVET degrees.”